(This is a question posed as part of my Reader Request Week — go there and suggest a topic!)
“So, how is your local media responding to the gay marriage ruling in Iowa, and do you think that other Midwestern states might soon see the error of their ways and come around to treating all people with the equality and respect they deserve? I am sure that Larrytown is cool with this, but I am curious about the KC and Topeka stations, etc.”
Well, truthfully, I don’t know. I avoid most local media like the plague. Part of this is a factor of where I live — deep, deep, DEEP ConservaTard Midwest. I know that my local news will only drive that fact home, again and again, and I wish to avoid high blood pressure. Part of it, though, is that in my experience, local TV news *everywhere* I’ve lived (even in NYC) is the same provincial, sensationalist, fear-mongering-mixed-with-meaningless-human-interest CRAP. Newspapers are a bit better, if only because of the additional detail they can provide. I get my local news via the LJ World website, which is award-winning, but still just “meh”, for the most part.
There really hasn’t been as much coverage of Iowa as I would’ve expected. What I have seen has been a repetition of the “activist judges” meme. Of course, now Vermont has legalized gay marriage, and it was the *legislature*, not judges, so that argument is gone… but of course, it’s Vermont, so the Right Wing will just roll their eyes and talk about “Eastern Liberals”.
The Midwest will not see the error of their ways. The only way it’s going to be legalized here is by a Supreme Court ruling (which may end up becoming necessary as more states recognize it — you can’t have marriages legal in some states but not others. It will be challenged Federally, sooner or later.) — and even then, the Midwest will still consider it taboo. (See Deep Southern attitudes about segregation and interacial marriage, even after those became legal.)